


Armor

by UnstableAngel



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: #unrelated&rambling, 10/10, All the ladies are badasses but in this fic we focus on Liz, Bc I relate, F/M, I feel like this is how my tags usually end up, I ship their brotp, Like my first 5+1 but it was accidental, M/M, Maybe more like mad scientist Liz + lab rat Michael, Maybe these should be notes but too late, Michael's POV, Rings as Armor, Science buddies Liz and Michael, This is not the fic it was supposed to be, oh!, should probably mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:22:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24384250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnstableAngel/pseuds/UnstableAngel
Summary: Michael first notices Liz's rings when he's exhausted and Max is mostly dead in his alien pod. He learns to pay more attention to them.OR 5 times Liz wears rings as armor + 1 time she wears them for LOVE
Relationships: Max Evans/Liz Ortecho
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	Armor

1\. Michael sits in the lab with Liz and Kyle, watching silently as his alien blood is drawn through a tube into a series of vials. It's been two weeks now and Kyle is the only one who's spent more than 24 hours away from where Max lays unconscious, but alive. They'd managed the surgery, but Max isn't waking up, so the three of them are back in the lab trying to fix it while Isobel keeps vigil by his side.  
Michael's so exhausted that he can't find the energy to hide that he cares about Max. Max is his brother. He's decided. Their blood has the same differences from human blood. So they're brothers he decides confidently.  
He lifts his head to see Kyle slam a hand against his face and drag it slowly down. "I can't," he says, "I'm exhausted and I'm going to screw it up. I'm going to get sleep and hygiene and sustenance." The exhaustion has brought a little dramatic flair in all of them, but they've all excepted it and don't comment on it.  
Liz looks at him helplessly but says nothing. She nods jerkily then wraps her arms around herself, dropping her chin to nuzzle against her shoulder. Kyle shrugs on his jacket and rests a hand on her shoulder before moving to Michael. "I'll be back . . . fuck. It's already night. Fuck! Alex should be by soon with food . . . Ok, I'll be back in the morning." He pauses at the door and it looks like he's going to say something else, but then he closes his mouth and the door behind him.  
In front of him, Liz inhales deeply then straightens her spine and gets back to work. With nothing else to do with the amount of energy he has left, he takes stock of her state. Her lipstick is bright to the point of blinding, and the bloodred stones in her earrings match against the dark hair she has pulled into a high ponytail that's probably causing enough pain to keep her awake. Then his eyes drop to her hands and his mouth realizes his brain has taken out the filter and blurts out, "ten rings?"  
"Thirteen actually," Liz says without looking up, "Armor."  
That makes sense, he thinks. She looks like she's about to go to war for Max. She looks like she'll win.

2\. A week later, Max is awake and she's still wearing enough metal to cover each section of her fingers. One of her rings reaches from the base of her pointer finger to the base of the nail. The design of the ring reminds Michael of a shield. He wonders if that was why she chose it.  
Max doesn't remember her.  
He and Isobel leave Max in Kyle and Alex's care for a few hours the day after he wakes to check up on Liz and Rosa in their temporary residence at Max's house.  
Liz opens the door to let them in and takes two steps inside before releasing a scream of pain, one that rips at his shredded heart - though he supposes it's still too early to justify this particular dramatic narration in light of Max's actually shredded heart - and clutches at her shoulder before collapsing.  
It's the same shoulder she's been taking comfort in at the lab, he notes as he lunges with Isobel just in time to catch her before she hits the ground. Isobel pulls Liz's shirt off the shoulder to find a dim, glowing handprint. Isobel gasps but honestly, he's not surprised. Isobel gathers her up in her arms and moves her to the couch, pulling Liz's head into her lap and slowly carding her hands through her hair. Liz immediately pushes into her touch and it hits him exactly how much the two of them have been lacking human/alien contact. He, at least, has the time Alex comes down into the lab with something for them to eat and just holds his hand. The two of them have been taking it glacially slow over the last two weeks, as they only touch when they're holding hands. No kissing and definitely no sex. But it shows him that Alex isn't just there for his body and it shows Alex that Michael is committed to getting his life together.  
Michael shakes himself back to the origin of the tangent and drapes a throw blanket from the sofa over her. Liz settles, then sighs. "I think the bond whatever was broken because of the pod, but for whatever reason, I'm still connected to him. Now that he's out again, it feels like the bond is being torn from me and I can't lose that. I can't. It's the last thing I have of him."  
"I know sweetheart," Isobel says, impossibly genuinely caring.  
Michael settles by Liz's feet, but she pulls him to lie in front of her on the couch, pressing her face to the back of his neck and curling one hand around him to rest where his shoulder meets the rest of him. He doesn't exactly fit on the couch, but they stay like that until it's time to get back to Max.

3\. The next time he sees her armor out in full force, Jesse Manes has the Pod Squad and Alex cornered behind the Wild Pony. After his episode with Kyle, the three aliens plus Alex forced the others to have some sort of protection. Kyle, obviously, had his bulletproof vest and no desire to get a gun. Maria already had a gun behind the bar. Liz was against carrying a gun, but let them train her in how to use one anyway.  
Jesse has been in the wind lately though, so all of them have their weapons on them or near them at all times.  
Anyway, they're in the alley and Jesse and three of his goons have them against the wall, and Liz unknowingly comes waltzing around the building, but somehow manages to stop and back away unnoticed.  
Then she rounds the building, gun in hand, just like Max and Alex showed her, and pulls the trigger, once, twice, and a third time. She comes to a stop well behind Jesse so he can't pull anything on her.  
Something glints on her trigger finger. Another ring encasing her entire finger, but he can't make out anything more than the shine of the silvery metal.  
"Drop the gun Jesse," she calls out, glossy hair streaming out behind her heroically, "You don't have many options here. We have the entire thing on video. You were threatening 4 upstanding citizens-" Jesse scoffs, but she continues anyway. "-Michael can divert the bullet by a believable amount and you'll be dead. If you shoot at Max or Alex you're only going to make this worse for yourself."  
Michael is the only one Alex lets see him fall apart through his grief at losing his father and the subsequent guilt at the feeling towards a man who beat him as long as he was under his roof but more importantly did such horrible things to the aliens.  
He checks up on Liz at Max's house a couple of days later, holding her close as she tries to hold it together over her first kill. Something digs into his arm where she's clutching it. It's the ring she was wearing when she shot the son of a bitch, plates of armor layering over each other to form a point sharp enough to give the illusion of deadliness.  
Michael stops by Max as he leaves. Max says she hasn't taken it or the gun off her person since that night.

4\. When they send Rosa to rehab, Liz texts him to pick up a small package off of Max's front doorstep. He manages not to open the package because he has some manners, thank you very much.  
He's glad he doesn't because when he arrives, Liz gives him a smile that tells him she's holding it together, but barely. She pulls out two rings from the box, a solid black metal band with the word sister engraved. It looks like something Rosa could appreciate. "It'll be waiting for you when you're ready," she says, and lets Rosa slide one on her middle finger.  
Liz takes a breath and straightens, ready to fight the world again it seems, and turns her sister around to the doors of the rehab center.  
"I love you, big sister."

5\. "Max, they took my dad. Max, ICE took my dad." They've just gotten back in range of cell towers apparently, and Max had put his voicemail on speakerphone.  
Michael guns it without prompting.  
When they get back to the Crashdown, as per Cam's text, Liz is pressed against her dad, face practically in his shoulder in a round booth with fries and all of their respective milkshakes in the middle of the table. While Max squeezes over to Liz's side, holding her as she throws herself into his arms, Michael slides over to Arturo - the closest to a father figure he's had since he was found.  
"I'm okay, mijo," Arturo whispers to him quietly. "Honestly, I think Liz's health was worse off. I could hear her from the holding cells. A couple of the other people were wondering if she was going to have a heart attack!"  
Michael can sense the amusement and fondness in Arturo's voice, but there's an undercurrent of fear he isn't ready to hear from the man.  
After they finish eating and drinking, everyone starts to leave and he finds himself alone with Liz. "Would you be his citizenship sponsor?" she asks before he can think. "Apparently the graffiti Rosa blamed on me was enough to make me ineligible."  
"Liz," he says carefully, "if you're ineligible, don't you think I would be too? I don't exactly win the most upstanding citizen award." She huffs audibly. "Why don't you ask Ma- whoa what's that?"  
It's a pretty serious conversation and usually Michael wouldn't derail the entire conversation, but the bright orange stone on her finger steals his attention.  
"Umm. This? It's a fire opal ring Helena gave Rosa."  
"Liz," he breathes, broken-hearted that she would cling to something of the mother who left her.  
"What? No . . . umm . . . it just reminds me that I can handle people leaving me," she says nervously as she fidgets.

And then he's heartbroken for another reason entirely and he grabs her in a hug, whispering into her hair. "You're not going to lose anyone else Liz. I promise."  
She looks like she's about to argue against the practicality of the statement, but she relaxes and invites him to stay in Rosa's room for the night.

+1 Michael watches Liz walk down the aisle from his brother's side. Isobel is technically best man, but it makes sense that way. He still knows that Max loves him, and his conviction in the fact that Max is his brother is no less strong than that time in the lab.  
He watches the both of them as they giggle almost non-stop through the ceremony, only stopping to read their vows, and then his brother gets predictably weepy.  
When Max puts the ring on her finger beside the others representing her, black metal shining next to steel and shield, she starts crying too, and they gravitate into a kiss seconds before the priest says the words.  
She looks good, Michael decides, happy and unguarded. He catches Alex's eye from the other side of the aisle and smiles when he winks.  



End file.
